


Let Me Call You Sweetheart

by lajulie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alderaanian Culture (Star Wars), Destruction of Alderaan (Star Wars), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Movie: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Trip to Bespin (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29768895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lajulie/pseuds/lajulie
Summary: Two weeks into their journey to Bespin, Leia and Han are finally in a good place — but Leia finds that grief, and guilt, have a way of sneaking up unawares. Thankfully, Han’s learned enough about Leia to know that sometimes, the best way to help is just to be there.Written for the 2020 HanLeia Celebration exchange.
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 16
Kudos: 35
Collections: Hanleia Holiday Exchange 2020





	Let Me Call You Sweetheart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MBlair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MBlair/gifts).



> MBlair provided a beautiful prompt:
> 
> “So, I was thinking that maybe on the trip to Bespin, Leia has a bit of a breakdown about Alderaan. This could be the first big one or just a smaller breakdown from a memory or something she feels like she’s losing/forgetting. And who is the only one there to help? Han.”
> 
> MBlair, it was wonderful to have the opportunity to write for you! I loved your prompts. Thank you for being so patient waiting for your gift; I hope you enjoy!

[Well?] Chewie growled, turning to Han.

“Well, what?” Han snapped. He was still a little thrown, to be honest, and he didn’t especially appreciate the Wookiee’s tone.

[Are you not going to go after her?] Chewie asked.

The story Han had been telling a minute ago was still hanging in the air, abandoned mid-sentence. Leia had just stormed out of their dinner, and Han had absolutely no idea why.

They’d been doing so well—at least he thought they’d been doing well, getting past all the pretending they’d been doing on Hoth, laughing and cuddling and kissing and more, throwing away their _Captain_ and _Princess_ garbage and just being _Han_ and _Leia_ these last two weeks. He hadn’t planned it, not by a long stretch, but somehow they’d managed to reach a place he’d not even thought he could dream of.

Sure, there had been some conflict in the beginning; they’d both been holding back, still trying to protect themselves, protect each other. One step forward sometimes meant two steps in retreat. But they’d gradually worked up to three steps forward for every retreat, and then to a leap Han had thought meant they were past all that. He’d thought Leia was happy, that _they_ were happy. At least for now.

But somewhere during dinner tonight he’d seen her face tighten again, the mask she’d worn on Hoth begin to resurface. He thought he’d been cajoling her out of it, telling a funny story about some adventure of theirs on Velga years ago, when suddenly a sort of intentionally blank look had come over her face, and she’d abruptly excused herself and stood up at the table. 

“Sweetheart, you all right?” Han had asked. Somewhere along their journey, that endearment from him had lost its sarcastic edge, become genuine.

He’d instantly regretted the _Sweetheart_ a minute later, when Leia spit out “I’m fine” in the kind of cold, angry tone that recalled her dismissive farewell in the Echo Base command center. 

And now she’d fled, to where he didn’t know. Though there were only so many places she could be on the ship.

[Well?] Chewie growled again.

“I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” he said. He wasn’t sure he should even try to go after her—what if she wanted to be alone?—but he guessed that was better than staring at the open doorway like a dumbass.

* * *

Leia felt like she was having some sort of out-of-body experience. She was in Han’s cabin ( _our cabin_ , as they’d tentatively started calling it the last few days), but she only vaguely remembered the sequence of events that had brought her here.

_I was mean. And cold._ She did remember that part, barely apologizing to Chewie for leaving in the middle of dinner, brushing off Han’s concerned _Sweetheart_ with an icy look and barely-contained rage. The Ice Princess, rearing her ugly head. Leia thought she was done with her.

But maybe that’s who Leia really was.

_I forgot,_ she thought, quietly berating herself again. _I have nothing but time right now, and I forgot._

If her chrono was accurate, she’d gone almost the entire day without marking one of Alderaan’s most important festivals, and her mother’s favorite, Maslenitsa. 

It was so strange, so random, what had finally triggered her memory. The dipping sauce Chewie had made to go with their meal had a delicious spice to it—nothing like any of the traditional Alderaanian dishes for the festival, not remotely related—but something about their sitting there, dipping their flatbreads in the sauce while Han told some sort of wild story about being a magician’s assistant, made her think of sitting with her family at the table, telling stories late into the night. Something not right had been at the back of her consciousness all day, and in that moment, it had clicked. _I forgot._

She was forgetting her culture, forgetting her people, betraying them all over again. What the hells was she doing here?

Especially here, in this cabin? _His_ cabin. This wasn’t fair, this wasn’t right. Here she was, dallying with Han and probably betraying him too, lost in the joy of their days and nights together, reveling in the fact that she was alive, and here, and—

_I don’t deserve this._

It wasn’t that she thought she ought to be donning sackcloth and doing penance for the rest of her days, it was just—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken a word in Alderaanian, outside of her dreams. Or plaited her hair in one of the traditional styles, beyond the crown braid she’d worn daily back on Hoth. Or even talked about Alderaan.

If she’d forgotten something so important as this, how long would it be before she’d erased all traces of her family, her planet? Killed them all, again?

Leia’s thoughts were interrupted by a soft tap on the door. 

“Leia?” Han asked. His voice was soft, tentative. 

_Great._ That was all she needed, everyone walking on eggshells around her again. _Fantastic_.

“Go away,” she said, as coldly as she could manage. 

There was a pause, and then Han’s voice came through the door, less tentative this time. “Nope,” he said.

Leia had been hunched over, head in her hands, but with that word she sat up. “What?”

“Not goin’ away,” Han continued. “Don’t have to let me in, don’t have to talk about it, ‘m just—I’m stayin’ here. With you.”

Leia stared at the door, but she didn’t say anything. After a few minutes, she heard a slight rustling sound from the other side, like Han had hunkered down for a long wait.

“Okay,” she said.

If nothing else, he’d managed to distract her from her earlier thoughts. Although the thought of that also made her a little angry—wasn’t that the problem, that she’d let herself be distracted with...with him?

She wasn’t even sure what to do with all these thoughts, these emotions; they seemed like they were swirling within her in a sort of incoherent storm. Why did she have to have all these damned feelings, anyway? All they did was cause more trouble, more grief for everyone who had the misfortune to be trapped with her. Who’d been foolish enough to risk themselves to go back for her.

Who’d held her like they loved her.

_Damn it._ Leia put her head back in her hands again.

She wasn’t sure how much more time had passed, but it had at least been several minutes when Han’s voice came across the door again. 

“You _wanna_ talk about it?” he asked.

No, he wasn’t the problem. He couldn’t fix the problem, but Han wasn’t the actual problem.

Leia stood up and opened the door. Just as she’d expected, Han was sitting on the floor outside, his long legs splayed out in front of him. 

She attempted a smile, though she knew it was a weak one. “Come in?”

Han scrambled up and followed her back into their cabin.

* * *

Han had fully resolved to sit there all night, if he needed to. When it came to Leia, just blundering in there didn’t work. Treating her like a delicate piece of glass sure as hell didn’t work. Letting her pretend like she was some kind of soulless automaton or gracious martyr to the cause didn’t work. Humor worked sometimes, but not others. Calling her on her bantha shit, when she needed it, was a start. And sometimes you just had to show her you were going to be there, no matter how angry or sad or lonely or heartbroken she was, even if you couldn’t fix it.

He’d finally figured that out, just in time to leave her.

_Nine hells,_ he couldn’t leave her. He had to figure something out—but that was a Future Han problem. Here, now, he wasn’t going anywhere.

Leia was grieving, had been for years, and sometimes she was so damned competent and full of life that it was easy to forget that. He hoped he’d made it safe for her to be real, to not be okay all the time. But they’d obviously hit a tender spot, or he’d fucked up without knowing how.

After some time sitting there, it occurred to him that other than refusing to leave, and reassuring her that she didn’t have to talk or let him in, he hadn’t actually offered anything.

“You _wanna_ talk about it?” he asked.

A minute later, the door slid open, and Leia ushered him in.

* * *

Once inside, each of them found a place to sit, Leia on the bunk, and Han nearby, but on the floor. He didn’t want to crowd her.

The smile Leia had obviously forced onto her face faded, and she looked uneasy in a way that she usually didn’t. She bit her lip slightly before speaking.

“I’m not really sure where to start,” she said.

Han nodded, but didn’t say anything, let the silence lie. The very uncomfortable silence.

Finally, Leia made a little noise of frustration, her hand moving up her forehead and raking through the front of her hair. It was up in her usual braids, but the front was looser than usual, like she’d done this motion more than a few times today. “I just—it’s Maslenitsa,” she said.

She said it as if Han should know what that was, which made him momentarily panic that he’d missed something important she’d said in the last few days. He assumed it was something from Alderaan, of course, but he didn’t recall her mentioning anything about it. 

“Maslenitsa,” he repeated. “And that’s today?”

“It was today. I—” Leia looked like she was confessing something—“I forgot.”

Han nodded again. She’d forgotten— _almost_ forgotten—something from Alderaan. An important day. And he knew a little about that feeling, how horrible it was to find the memories starting to slip through your fingers. Like when that stupid pendant of Ma’s had gotten lost—probably got thrown away, for all Han knew—and he’d been so mad he couldn’t see straight for more than a week. And still hadn’t forgotten.

Part of him wanted to try to reassure her into realizing this wasn’t the end of the world— _happens all the time in space travel, Sweetheart, easy to lose track of the days, we’ll just celebrate it tomorrow—_ but it was clearly more than just this one day. Just like his ma’s thing was more than a damn necklace. 

Han got up and sat next to her on the bunk. 

“‘M sorry,” he offered quietly. 

Leia lifted her head slightly. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It’s mine.”

Yeah, this was quite a bit bigger than forgetting a special day. Leave it to Leia to put the weight of an entire planet, a whole people, on her shoulders. He put an arm loosely around her.

“That ain’t your fault,” he said firmly, giving her a light squeeze as he did.

Leia closed her eyes and breathed in, then opened them and looked at him with so much pain that Han actually winced. “It _is_ my fault,” she said, with a sense of finality that suggested she was definitely no longer talking about the holiday, and that she’d long ago accepted the blame. “They did it because of me.”

_The fuck? Oh, hells, no._

“No,” Han insisted, forcing himself not to look away from the pain in her eyes. “No. Not true. That is not on you.”

Her mouth tightened into a thin line. “The only reason the Death Star was anywhere near Alderaan was because of me. I wouldn’t give them the Rebel base. I practically dared them to—so they brought me to the bridge and made me choose. Which one to betray.”

She looked down at her lap. “I gave them Dantooine, but—it was too late. So they did it anyway.”

That actually explained quite a bit of what he’d overheard from Leia’s nightmares….but that wasn’t the point right now. 

“Oh, Leia,” he said, and folded her into his arms. “No, honey. No.”

She accepted his embrace, but unlike the times he’d comforted her after a nightmare, or the nights they’d spent wrapped up together in this very bunk, she wasn’t relaxing into it. Her arms were around him, but almost stiffly. Like she didn’t think she deserved the comfort.

Han pulled away, but left an arm loosely behind her. She’d already decided her own guilt in her head, tried and convicted herself of treason. He had to find another way.

“Look,” he said, wracking his brain for a good comparison, “my line of work, you end up working around some pretty fuckin’ bad guys. To say the least.”

Leia nodded. She’d been on what looked like the verge of crying for quite a while now, but no tears were flowing. Now, her eyes narrowed slightly, clearly wondering where the hell this was going.

For his part, Han kind of wondered too, but he pressed on. “This is what they do. They hurt you, they murder, they steal, they force beings into slavery, they blow up shit, and every damn time, they try to make it your fault, too. If only you had paid my fuckin’ extortion, I wouldn’t have to take you and your family hostage. Oh, shit, had to burn down your whole house, too bad you didn’t just let me take whatever I wanted. You know they do.”

Leia seemed to be listening more intently, so he continued. “Every damn step, they made a choice. They built that thing, they took it to Alderaan, they fired that trigger, and they were gonna try to put it on you no matter what you did. Let the bad guys own it, Sweetheart. _Make ‘em_ own it.”

Leia nodded, her chin raised in that defiant way she had sometimes. _Damn right I will_ , it said. 

Gods, he loved that, loved _her_. 

Before this trip was up, he had to figure out how to stay. But tonight, he had to figure out how to celebrate this holiday.

* * *

Han was gone from the cabin when Leia woke up, and she chuckled to find that despite the fact that he couldn’t have gone far—they were limited to the ship, after all, unless he wanted to catapult himself into space to get away from her—he’d left her a note to explain his absence.

> _Sweetheart—  
>  _ _Thought you might like a little breakfast in bed. Stay put, I’ll bring it when it’s ready.  
>  _ _Han_

Part of her bristled at the idea that she needed coddling after last night’s breakdown, but she reminded herself that Han was the last person who believed in coddling anybody, and especially not her. That was one of the reasons half of High Command found him infuriating, and one of the reasons they’d become friends; Han had always given as good as he got, and wasn’t afraid to challenge her to do the same.

_Caring ain’t coddling, Princess, there’s a difference_ , he’d insisted to her once.

She could smell kaffe coming from the galley, and she sincerely hoped that whatever Han had concocted out of their available supplies to go with it, that it would be here soon. She was starving. And though she had gotten more than her usual amount of sleep, she felt somewhat drained. 

_Grief really takes it out of a girl,_ she thought ruefully, fingering the sleeve of the ancient sweatshirt she had slept in. It was gray and soft, and it still smelled like Han. He must have worn it before, on Hoth.

They’d just slept last night, the first night they hadn’t made love since...since the first time, more than a week ago. A part of her had still wanted to, but she’d stopped herself, and Han had followed her lead. She was trying not to overthink why she’d stopped, especially since she’d still had this sense of rightness as they’d lain down together, as she’d felt Han’s warmth beside her, like that was all she’d needed. 

Suddenly, the door opened, and Han entered, carrying a tray with two mugs of kaffe and a covered plate. Seeing her awake and holding his note, he grinned.

“Hey, you’re up. Ready for some food?”

His smile was infectious. “I am,” she said, returning the grin.

“Okay, here we go,” he said, and stooped to place the tray down on the small storage cube that functioned as a bedside table. He handed her one of the mugs, and took the other for himself, before sitting down beside her on the bunk.

Leia began to reach for the cover, and Han cleared his throat.

_That’s odd._

“Is this okay?” she asked, her hand still poised on the cover. 

Han nodded, but he didn’t say anything. 

Leia lifted the cover the rest of the way, and found herself looking at—a quartet of Alderaanian-style _blinzi_ , the filled pancake traditionally eaten for Maslenitsa celebrations. Part of the reason the holiday had been Mama’s favorite; _blinzi_ had been one of her favorite foods.

“[Joyful Maslenitsa and blessed year],” Han said. It took Leia a beat before she realized that Han wasn’t speaking Basic. Or Corellian, for that matter.

She turned her head to look directly at him. “What did you say?”

“[Joyful Maslenitsa and blessed year],” he repeated carefully, in Alderaanian. His accent was—not bad, especially for a non-native.

Leia could feel her lip trembling, her eyes filling with tears. She was overwhelmed, to hear those sounds coming from his lips, to hear someone she loved utter that greeting to her again. She opened her mouth to speak, but quickly closed it, swallowing the wail that wanted to escape. Tears began to fall, rolling in streams down her face, and she could no longer stop them; she was about one breath away from a truly ugly cry.

“[Sweetheart],” he said, still in her native language, and that was when the dam broke and she fell into his shoulder, weeping.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he said, back in Basic again as he held her. “I didn’t mean to—‘m sorry if I screwed this up,” he said. “Didn’t mean to just make you sad.”

“No,” she said, still leaking a flood of tears into his shirt, “it’s just—you didn’t screw anything up, I promise.” She lifted her head. “I just—I miss them, so much.” She put her head back down; she couldn’t really speak beyond that.

His arms closed around her a little tighter, and one hand caressed her back in soft strokes. “I know, _larel_. I’d get ‘em back to you, if I could. ‘M sorry, Leia,” he repeated.

They stayed like that for a long time, Leia crying into Han’s shoulder, Han whispering words of comfort into her ear as he continued to hold her, as he rocked her ever so gently back and forth. Not just apologies, not just endearments, but also the reassurance that there was no need to hold back her tears, no hurry to compose herself. 

“Got all the time you need, Sweetheart,” he said. “Figure you’re due a good cry, about three years’ worth, at least.”

She suddenly remembered the _blinzi_. “But breakfast.”

“They’ll reheat. Or we’ll eat ‘em cold, are they good cold?” That question made Leia laugh and cry in the same breath.

After a long time, it finally felt like she was reaching a stopping point. She hated losing control, but control didn’t seem so important when she was in Han’s arms, somehow. It was like Han was her belayer, that she could trust herself not to plummet as long as he had her.

Was it more rude to wipe her nose on his already-damp shirt, or on his sweatshirt? Leia wasn’t sure, so she just sniffled slightly as she rose up. She did need something else, besides a tissue.

“Would you say that—what you called me, again?” she asked.

Han’s eyes lit up, and the concern on his face melted into a fond grin. “[Sweetheart],” he repeated in Alderaanian. His eyes often changed color, and right now they were so, so green.

Leia reached her hand to his cheek, and guided his face down to hers for a kiss.

* * *

It turned out the _blinzi_ were better warmed up, as was the kaffe. Chewie was on watch, so they were alone in the lounge as they finally ate together. Leia had regaled him with a story about her mother, and a prank they’d played on her father one Maslenitsa day, and when he’d finished laughing, she decided to broach the subject she’d wondered about even as she’d wept into his shirt.

“Your accent is quite good,” she said. “Had you learned some Alderaanian...before?”

Han smiled. “No,” he said. “I had some, ah, last-minute tutoring.”

Seeing as how the only other organic being on this ship spoke Shryiiwook exclusively, it was fairly obvious who Han’s tutor had been.

“You talked to Threepio. Willingly.”

“I did.”

“About something other than the ship.”

Han nodded. “It’s worse than that. I _asked_ him for help.”

Leia had to laugh. “Did he short-circuit from surprise?”

Han grinned. “Nah, just had to get him to focus on the couple things I could learn in a few hours, ‘stead of tryin’ to quote a bunch of famous poems or learning the sixty-eight different words for snow.”

Leia smiled. “Well, he is fluent in—”

“Six million forms of communication, yeah, he mentioned that. A few times.” 

Leia laughed again, but grew serious as she considered what it meant, what Han had done. That droid had a special ability to get under Han’s skin, with all his fretting and his penchant for interrupting battles to share grim probabilities of survival, and his surprising lack of understanding of any human behavior outside of official protocols. Going to Threepio for help—that was above and beyond, for Han.

And yet Leia knew she would do the equivalent for Han, in a heartbeat. No question.

There were words for this; there was one word in particular. Leia wasn’t ready to say that one just yet. 

But there was the one Han already knew. The one Leia would never forget.

“Han,” she said.

“Mmm?”

“Thank you,” she said. “[Sweetheart].”

**Author's Note:**

> Maslenitsa was borrowed from a Russian festival in which pancakes are heavily featured (and blini are often a featured food). 
> 
> Blinzi are essentially space blintzes.


End file.
